Free Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

his estate to his eldest son. The second
son thought over the horoscope, and said to himself:
    "Alas! am I born to this only in the world? The sayings of my father
never failed. I have seen them prove true to the last word while he was
living; and how has he fixed my horoscope! 'FROM MY BIRTH POVERTY!' Nor
is that my only fate. 'FOR TEN YEARS, IMPRISONMENT'—a fate harder than
poverty; and what comes next? 'DEATH ON THE SEA-SHORE'; which means
that I must die away from home, far from friends and relatives on a
sea-coast. Now comes the most curious part of the horoscope, that I am
to 'HAVE SOME HAPPINESS AFTERWARDS!' What this happiness is, is an
enigma to me."
    Thus thought he, and after all the funeral obsequies of his father were
over, took leave of his elder brother, and started for Benares. He went
by the middle of the Deccan, avoiding both the coasts, and went on
journeying and journeying for weeks and months, till at last he reached
the Vindhya mountains. While passing that desert he had to journey for
a couple of days through a sandy plain, with no signs of life or
vegetation. The little store of provision with which he was provided
for a couple of days, at last was exhausted. The chombu, which he
carried always full, filling it with the sweet water from the flowing
rivulet or plenteous tank, he had exhausted in the heat of the desert.
There was not a morsel in his hand to eat; nor a drop of water to
drink. Turn his eyes wherever he might he found a vast desert, out of
which he saw no means of escape. Still he thought within himself,
"Surely my father's prophecy never proved untrue. I must survive this
calamity to find my death on some sea-coast." So thought he, and this
thought gave him strength of mind to walk fast and try to find a drop
of water somewhere to slake his dry throat.
    At last he succeeded; heaven threw in his way a ruined well. He thought
he could collect some water if he let down his chombu with the string
that he always carried noosed to the neck of it. Accordingly he let it
down; it went some way and stopped, and the following words came from
the well: "Oh, relieve me! I am the king of tigers, dying here of
hunger. For the last three days I have had nothing. Fortune has sent
you here. If you assist me now you will find a sure help in me
throughout your life. Do not think that I am a beast of prey. When you
have become my deliverer I will never touch you. Pray, kindly lift me
up." Gangazara thought: "Shall I take him out or not? If I take him out
he may make me the first morsel of his hungry mouth. No; that he will
not do. For my father's prophecy never came untrue. I must die on a sea
coast, and not by a tiger." Thus thinking, he asked the tiger-king to
hold tight to the vessel, which he accordingly did, and he lifted him
up slowly. The tiger reached the top of the well and felt himself on
safe ground. True to his word, he did no harm to Gangazara. On the
other hand, he walked round his patron three times, and standing before
him, humbly spoke the following words: "My life-giver, my benefactor!
I shall never forget this day, when I regained my life through your
kind hands. In return for this kind assistance I pledge my oath to
stand by you in all calamities. Whenever you are in any difficulty
just think of me. I am there with you ready to oblige you by all the
means that I can. To tell you briefly how I came in here: Three days
ago I was roaming in yonder forest, when I saw a goldsmith passing
through it. I chased him. He, finding it impossible to escape my claws,
jumped into this well, and is living to this moment in the very bottom
of it. I also jumped in, but found myself on the first ledge of the
well; he is on the last and fourth ledge. In the second lives a serpent
half-famished with hunger. On the third lies a rat, also half-famished,
and when you again begin to draw water these may request you first to
release them. In the same way the goldsmith also may ask you. I beg
you, as your bosom